A Cambridge taxi driver left his car fully parked on a pavement for 10 minutes while he picked up a coffee for himself, it has been claimed.

Photos show the A1 Cabco Taxis vehicle parked in the middle of the pavement at the corner of Covent Garden and Mill Road in Cambridge's city centre.

The incident, which took place around 5pm on November 26, was recorded by a cyclist.

The gobsmacked Cambridge resident, who does no want to be named, watched with disbelief as the unidentified driver allegedly left his vehicle for 10 minutes whilst buying a drink from the Costa Coffee across the road.

A taxi parked on the corner of Mill Road and Covent Garden in Cambridge

He said: "I assumed the driver was going to pick up someone, perhaps with a disability, to warrant such action.

"It transpired however that he was picking himself up a coffee from Costa Coffee over the road. So for nearly 10 minutes his vehicle was parked there. "

A1 Cabco Taxis explained that the driver in question was new to its fleet and that he had "no excuses" for his behaviour after receiving company training.

Director Carly Stewart said: "The driver in question has been on our fleet this month only. He has just been through an in depth new driver induction training program so there should be no excuses as to what is expected as a new driver joining our fleet.

"It has explained in writing and twice verbally through our new driver induction training programme that they are a representative of the A1 Cabco Taxis and should abide by our safe driving guidelines at all times.

"The driver signs a contract to confirm that he understands and it is kept on our records.

"We pride ourselves on an excellent fleet where our drivers are polite, courteous and understand that safe driving practices need to be adhered to at all times.

"We are extremely fortunate that it is very unusual to receive a complaint of this nature and if we receive a complaint it is dealt with on each and every occasion. All records of which are held on the drivers file and dealt with accordingly in conjunction with Company policy.

"An internal investigation will be undertaken immediately with the driver suspended until this matter has been resolved.

"We have a state of the art tracking system which will provide us with the relevant information in the event that this took place when the driver was working on our fleet at the time of the alleged incident.

"Any requests for information by the police will be handled as per their request."

The resident who witnessed the incident claimed he regularly sees poor driving from taxis in Cambridge.

He added: "This is not an isolated incident. I... regularly see taxi drivers paying little attention to the one way streets, doing three point turns in the middle of Mill Road, nearly always exceeding the 20mph speed limits in my area and parking, on double yellow lines, or the pavement and disappearing off to get food and refreshments.

"What I want to know is whether it’s OK for taxi drivers to be behaving like this, as they seem to have a free licence to do pretty much what they want in this city."

Have you seen similar crazy parking in Cambridge? Please send us your photos and stories to newsdesk@cambridge-news.co.uk or reach us on Twitter at @CambridgeNewsUK or through our Facebook page.